Old Fashioned Lullaby
by Lavinia Lavender
Summary: No matter how used you are to nightmares, sometimes you have to talk to the one who always soothed you afterwards. Stanford-era.


**Author notes:** Yay new fic! I started writing this less than a week ago, even, and it's gone through multiple revisions and betas. :D Thanks so much to dime_for_12 and Bailey.

* * *

**Old-Fashioned Lullaby**

In the three months Jess had been sleeping with Sam - not just sex, but all the night through in the same bed - she had almost grown used to his nightmares. They weren't every night, but once a week, sometimes every two weeks, he'd start awake violently. Jess was a fairly light sleeper, so it always woke her up too, though she could tell he made an effort not to thrash. It was usually silent, though occasionally he sat up with a hoarse cry - usually just "No!", though other times it sounded like the aborted start of a name. She was never conscious enough at the moment to try to decipher it.

Inevitably, as she sat up and reached for him, Sam would turn his face away. He didn't move away from her, though, and squeezed her hand back when she grasped his. Still, he looked away until his breathing was back under control, and then he'd kiss and hold her, murmur apologies she always shushed him for, and they would lie back down. He kept his arms wrapped around her like he was afraid of losing her, though Jess didn't think his nightmares were about her.

Tonight was different.

Tonight she woke up with Sam's hand colliding with her face and neck. She had never been hit like that before, and certainly not by Sam. For one terrified, disoriented moment, she thought they were being attacked by burglars or psycho killers. Then she heard Sam's voice, the words choked out: "No, _Dean_-"

She fumbled for the lamp switch, barely registering her clock read 3:48, and turned back to him.

Sam was staring straight ahead, eyes wide and unseeing.

"Sam..." She touched his shoulder, and the moment she did, he jerked away, spinning out of bed with one hand shooting behind their bedframe - then he caught himself, stopping dead and dropping his head so his hair hid his eyes.

Jess stared, frozen and unaccountably frightened again, but Sam turned instead for the desk near his side of the bed, pushing papers off and knocking over his pencil can. He had a rough energy she never saw in daylight hours, but it was not the same swift, deadly motion she saw after she touched him, when for a wild moment she thought she had been sleeping next to a stranger who only looked like her boyfriend.

Jess swallowed and spoke softly. "Sam, honey, you had another nightmare."

He shook his head, not looking up from the desk. "No, it was - it was _too real_. I can't - I have to know."

Jess drew her legs underneath her, watching him. She had never asked before, but he was so _frantic_now, and her heart still pounded from the adrenaline rush. "What did you dream?"

He didn't answer, but straightened with what he'd been looking for - his cell phone. He clasped it like a sacred relic between his palms, finally looking at her. "I have to call them. I need to make sure they're still alive. I don't _know_." His voice cracked.

His family. The family he had spoken of fewer times than he'd gotten C's on tests: the father who disowned him for going to college, the brother whose name he could barely say, but when he did Jess saw more in his face than he probably meant to share. She bit her lip and nodded.

Sam whirled out of the room.

* * *

Only when he reached the sidewalk outside did Sam press Dean's name and the phone tight against his ear. He prayed it hadn't been disconnected, that Dean hadn't changed numbers - a very likely occurrence, but right now he didn't think he could handle it, he wouldn't be able to process it as anything other than _they're dead; they died weeks ago, their phones crushed under their bodies, fallen unnoticed in the woods or a ditch, anywhere._

But the phone rang, and at that first sweet sound Sam let out a shuddering breath and turned to lean his forehead against the brick building. God, he was a wreck; never before had a dream or nightmare left him this rattled, this emotional, but he couldn't push it away; it wasn't fading. He didn't care about what his brother would say or what his dad would think about how well he was coping on his own; he _needed_to hear Dean's voice, to hear Dean talk to him.

"Hullo?"

And there it was: his brother's voice, gruff with sleep and irritation. Sam slid to his knees, all the trembling tension he hadn't been fully aware of wiped out of him.

"Dean." He had no control over his voice, that raw, naked edge that made him sound ten years younger.

"Sammy?" Dean didn't sound much more awake, yet his tone had a new alertness, bringing to mind a dozen instances of Dean flinging out a protective arm before a busy road or a violent ghost.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

"Sam, what's wrong?"

Sam pressed his fist to his mouth for several seconds before he trusted himself to reply. "Nothing. I'm sorry I woke you up. Just - I had to make sure you were still all right. I, I haven't heard from you in a while. We haven't talked."

There was the distant groan of motel bed springs, and Dean muttered, "Hold on a sec."

In the background, Sam caught a rough, "Is he okay?" and his breath caught and held, like Dad might hear him if he breathed into the receiver. Hearing Dad's voice constricted something in his chest, but Sam wouldn't ask to talk to him. He couldn't - he had nothing to say. It was good to know Dad still cared about him, but it didn't change how he told Sam not to come back.

There was a click Sam guessed was the motel door closing, so Dean was probably outside too. "What's going on, Sam?"

Sam took a deep breath, but nothing came to him. No way Dean wouldn't mock him until they hung up, and next time too, for running to call his big brother because he had a bad dream. Maybe that was what Sam wanted to hear more than anything right now.

"It's just...it's stupid, really. Just a dream. But, it felt so real - I've never felt one like that before - and even when I woke up, I thought it was real, and I just had to be sure it wasn't."

After a moment, Dean sighed into the phone. "We're fine, Sammy. Just barbecued a couple of Civil War corpses down in Mississippi. They were a bitch to find in an unmarked grave, but the worst we got was sore muscles. Not even a scrape. Seriously, you're forgetting what kick-ass hunters we are, and that hurts."

Sam grinned so wide it felt more like a grimace, and he kept his eyes shut. "Yeah, guess I am. Where are you?" The question slipped out.

"Uhhh...hell, Sam, I can't remember right now. I think we just crossed the border into Kentucky. We're on our way to check out some disappearances in Maryland."

There was a pause, and Sam asked, "You're doing okay?" He had to keep his brother talking, he couldn't let him go this soon.

A few moments of silence, then Dean coughed slightly and said, "Yeah, we're good. Doing all right." It didn't sound convincing, but right now Sam didn't care past how his brother was still walking and breathing. "Taking care of yourself down in sunny California?"

Sam smiled again, though he wasn't sure why. "Yeah, I am. Still got all A's. I got a girlfriend, too." He added the last bit instinctively, knowing Dean would judge his self-fulfillment primarily on that achievement.

Sure enough: "What! C'mon, Samantha, how come you never told me you were a lesbian?"

He stifled a laugh. "Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean returned without missing a beat. "But hey, I'm proud of you. Except, wait - did you leave her in the middle of the night to go call your brother?"

"Yeah." Sam had meant for it to sound sheepish, but it came out simple, straightforward, and broke the brief light mood.

New silence, ended by another quieter exhale. "It was just a dream, Sam. We're fine, I swear. Go back to sleep." Dean's tone was low, soothing - the same way he had said it countless times over the years, every time Sam woke up during the night.

But Sam didn't want to hang up, because the moment he did, he would stop knowing Dean was safe. They wouldn't talk again for weeks or months, and the days and hours of uncertainty stretched before him as a monstrous thing, as terrifying as any he'd faced - except this one he had to face alone, and he didn't know how he could do it. "Please be careful. _Please_."

"Yeah, we always are. Don't worry about us, Sam." He sounded a little more brusque. "You left to get away from all this life-or-death drama, right? Don't go dragging it around now."

Wordless, Sam shook his head. No, Dean had it all wrong, but he couldn't tell him that now. "Just be careful," he whispered. "You - you have my number in your phone, right? So if something happens - someone can call me?"

"Yeah." Dean's voice gentled again. "Gotta stop worrying, man. Cali's too laid-back of a place for you to be moping in the middle of the night like this. Go kiss your girlfriend - go back to sleep."

Sam swallowed and, from long habit of obeying Dean in the night, nodded. "Okay. You too."

* * *

When he came in, Jess was still sitting up with the lamp on. He crawled back into bed, and she lay down with him, stroking his back as she watched him with all the unasked questions in her eyes. Sam had meant to tell her something, anything, but now he found there were no words left in him. He curled up tighter, shivering.


End file.
